Welt



' H. LYON WELT "Filed Aug. 27. 1921 Patented Oct. 14, 1924.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

HARRY LYON, OF BROCKTON, MASSACHUSETTS, ASSIGNOB TO JOHN A. BARBOUR AND PERLEY E. BARBOUR, DOING BUSINESS AS BABIBOUR WELTING COMPANY, OF

BROGKTON, MASSACHUSETTS.

Application filed August 27, 1921.

To all whom it may concern:

Be it known that I, HARRY LYON, a citizen of the United States, residing at Brockton, in the county of Plymouth and State of Massachusetts, have invented new and useful Improvements in Welts, of which the following is a specification.

This invention relates to shoemaking, and particularly to welting or welts of the sort which are commonly used in McKay work and have a continuous and unbroken mass throughout a part, usually more than onehalf, of the width, and the remainder of which is composed of tongues, both sides of which are cut on a bevel and are so separated by intervening spaces that they overlap at their edges without touching, except as they are pressed together in being applied to a shoe. Such welts as usually used in the McKay system of shoe-making overlie the projecting edge of the outer sole and their tongues are confined with the edge of the upper between the inner and outer soles. The welts of this description as used in practice have tongues with square ends, that is, the end faces of the tongues are perpendicular to the broad surfaces of the welt strip and parallel to the outer edge face of the strip. It results from this formation of the tongues that an abrupt shoulder is formed at the inner edge of the welt,- no matter how tightly the tongues may be squeezed together by pressure applied in making the shoe; which shoulder, although of less height than the thickness of the outer and solid part of the welt is nevertheless a distinct and solid shoulder. The shoulder so formed causes an obj ectionable appearance at the bottom of the outer sole after leveling, and particularly when the sole has been bufied on the bottom. This is due to the fact that in the leveling process the outer sole is so distorted by the shoulder of the welt, that a distinct ridge is formed on the bottom surface, and if this ridge is cut away by buffing the tenture of the leather then exposed is different in appearance from the rest of the sole.

Welts of this type are produced with economy of material from strips or ribbons of leather of less than twice the width thickness of two resulting welts, from which the welts are cut by alternating inclined cuts transverse to the length of the WELT.

Serial No. 495,887.

strip, intermediate longitudinal cuts having staggered arrangement by which the tongues at the edge of each resulting welt are formed from the material of the strip between the tongues of the other welt.

My object has been first to eliminate the square shoulder, which is an objectionable characteristic of the tongued welts previously used for the reasons above set forth; second, to produce with a greater economy of material than heretofore welts of the general character here indicated which also accomplish the foregoing object; and third to produce a form of tongued welt which, when attached to the lasted shoe before the outer sole has been applied, will establish an exact and definite filling line to which to build up the plastic composition with which the space between the inner and outer solesbounded by the welt and upper is filled.

The first and third of the objects above stated are accomplished by so cutting the strip of stock from which the welts are made that the ends of the tongues are beveled in the direction of their length, and the second object is accomplished additionally by so arranging the bevel of the cuts which form the tongue ends that such tongues are longer in the plane of one of the faces of the strip than they are in the plane of the opposite face; all as will more fully appear from the following detailed description of three ofthe forms in which my invention may be embodied.

In the drawings which form a part of this specification:--

Figure 1 is a plan view of a strip of stock properly incised. to produce two welts by which all of the previously named objects of this invention are accomplished.

Figure 2 is a plan view of the welts so made partly separated from one another.

Figure 3 is an elevation or edge view of one of the welts shown in Figure 2 looking toward the projecting ends of the tongues. The view point of this figure is indicated by the-arrow, on line 3-3 of Figure 2.

Figure 4: is a cross section of the two welts represented as cut by the line 44 of Figure 2.

Figure 5 is a perspective view on an enlarged scale of the welts shown in Figure 2.

Figure 6 is a view similar to Figure 1 of a strip so incised as to make two welts of a modified construction embodying certain features of the invention.

Figure 7 is a view showing the twowelts produced as indicated in Figure 6 separated from one another.

Figure 8. is a perspective view of the welts shown in Figure 7.

Figure 9 is a cross section on line 9--9 of Figure 6 showing the welts cut by such line as being separated from one another.

Figure 10 is: a view similar to Figure 6 showing a second modification of the invention.

Figure 11 is a plan showing the welts made according to Figure 10 withdrawn from'one another.

Figure 12 is a perspective view of the welts shown in Figure 11.

Figure 13 is a cross section on line 13 13 of Figure 10, but representing the individual welts as withdrawn from one another.

Figure 14 is a fragmentary sectional view of a shoe containing in its construction a welt made according to my invention.

Welts are generally made from leather of-good quality and are applied to the shoe with the grain side outward. Thus the grain side faces away from the outer sole and is uppermost and exposed to view when the shoe is worn. For convenience of the following description it will be assumed that the surface or the welts and of. the

strips from which they are cut, shown in these drawings, is the grain surface of the leather, or, in other words, is the upper or forward side of the piece.

Referring first to the form of the invention shown in Figures 1 to 5 inclusive, a represents a strip of stock suitable for welting. The strip is cut through from front to rear by a series of parallel cuts 1, 2, 3, at, etc., all of which are located in the Zone midway between theedg'es' of the strip and the intersections of which with the surfaces of the strip are in lines perpendicular to the length thereof. These cuts are not perpendicularrto the faces of the strip,,but are-inclined at equal acute angles to such faces. Between and connecting the transversely arranged cuts are intermediate cuts 5, 6,7, .8, 9, etc, occupying a staggered arrangement in two rows parallel to, and at equal distances on opposite sides of, the longitudinal median line of the strip.

These cuts as they pass through the strip are so inclined that the lines in which they intersectjthe rear surface of the strip are farther apart than the lines in which they intersect the front surface, although equally distant from the median line. These cuts also extend on a lengthwise directed slant equally with the'cross' cuts 1 2, 3, 4-, and.

each of the longitudinal cuts is entirely comprised between two of the cross cuts. The

adjacent cuts thus join one another and subdivide the strip of stock a into two complete similar welt strips Z) and c of which the former has a seriesof tongues d extending along one edge and the latter a series of similar tongues 6. These tongues are beveled or have inclined side faces, and their end faces f'and the bottoms g of the notches between them are beveled as well. Thus the tongues are longer, and the notches extend further toward the unbroken edge of the welt, at the rear side than 'at the front side. f

The effective width of the welt is three treme width from the unbroken edge to-the line of extremities-of the tongues, and represents a saving of stock over the methods heretofore used for making tongued or toothed welts, by an amount equal to the width (transversely of the welt) of the projection of the beveled faces 7 in the plane of either surface of the welt. Thatis, whereas welts having atotal width equal only to w (in Figure 4) could becut from the strip a by the previously known methods, welts of the width w can be obtained from the same strip of stool; by my method; with resultant savingvof stool: equal to the width less the width w w. In other words, to produce welts by the old methods ofthe same total width and with a suflicient width of unnotched grain surface, a strip of stool: wider than the strip a by the amount w lessw would have to be used. To illustrate by a specific example the order of magnitude of the saving thusobtained, I may state that two welts each having a width of eleven siXteenths of an inch may be cut from a strip of stock one inch wide, while welts made according to the previous methodfroni the same width of stock, to have the same appearance on the grain side, would be only five eighths of an inch wide. Thus the width of stock sufiicient with the aid of my invention to produce 'eleven-sixteen'ths inch welts is one-sixteenth of an inch narrower than that heretofore necessary for making welts of the same width, permitting approximately six per cent of the stock to be saved;

Besides the saving of material thus ac complished, the beveled formation of the ends of the tongues vnables these ends to be pressed down against the inner sole in the operation of leveling the outer sole, and largely eliminates the ridge on the'bottom' of the sole which is an objectionablefeature in shoes made with welts of the old type,

and avoids the need of cutting away so much of the sole bottom by bufling, with consequentdestruction of the grain surface at the location of said ridge, as was formerly necessary to make the sole bottom smooth and even. I o V,

A welt embodying the invention occupies a position in the shoe something like that shown illustratively by the fragmentary sectional view in Figure 14:, where bis the welt, h the inner sole, is the outer sole, Z the vamp and m the lining. The tongues of the welt are confined between the outer sole and the inturned part of the upper, making the welt less thick in this part than in the exposed part, which is also the case with welts of this type previously used, but further, the beveled ends of the tongues form an inclined surface 0 facing toward the inner sole, and the inner boundary of this inclined surface establishes a line to which the plastic filling p is brought. An exact filling line is thus established which enables a uniform character of bottom to be made.

x In the modification of the invention shown in Figures 6 to 9 inclusive, the same char acter of base strip is cut to produce two welts by transverse cuts 1, 2, 8, 4:, etc., exactly as in the form first described, but the longitudinal cuts 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, instead of being alined in two rows and inclined outwardly in passing from the front to the rear side, are inclined to the edges of the strip. The tongues of the welts q and '1" have beveled end faces 8 and t, respectively, which give the result of elimination of the abrupt inner shoulder on the welt, and as to the welt q secures the further advantage of establishing an exact filling line as described in connection with Figure 14:, but this form does not contain the advantage of increased width of welt from base strip of given size which is a characteristic of the form first described. I

The third form of the invention shown in Figures 10 to 13 differs from the others in that the longitudinal cuts 15, 16, 17 of one row are oppositely inclined to the cuts 18, 19, 20, etc., of the other row. The tongues of the welts u and o so cut from the strip have oppositely beveled end faces 00 andy, respectively. Both of these welts secure the advantage of elimination of the abrupt inner shoulder and the establishment of an exact filling line, secured by the welt q of the second form of the invention, but lack the advantage of extra width and economy of material in production characteristic of the first form.

All of the forms of the invention thus described have the common characteristic of tongues which are rhombic in cross section and have beveled end faces, and all have the same advantage of no abrupt shoulder on the inner edge of the welt when the same is applied in a shoe. All, except the welt 1" in the second described form of the invention, present a beveled inner edge of which the beveled surface is faced toward the bottom of the inner sole when the welt is applied with its grain side faced away from the outer sole; and the welt r named as an exception is also adapted to obtain the same result if its grain side is faced toward the outer sole. Finally, the first form of the invention combines with these useful qualities the further and highly important one of pro ducing welts of increased width from a base strip of given width, other things being equal, with substantial economy of material.

What I claim and desire to secure by Letters Patent is;

1. A welt of the type having a series of tongues and intermediate notches arranged along one edge, the intermediate sides of which tongues are beveled, and said tongues having also beveled end faces.

2. A welt having a series of tongues and intermediate notches arranged along one edge, the intermediate faces of the tongues being beveled, and the end faces of the tongues being likewise beveled with an outward inclination from the front face tothe rear face thereof, whereby said tongues are longer in the rear faces of the welt than in the front faces.

A welt having a series of separated tongues and intermediate notches along one edge, which tongues have parallel sides and beveled ends, the faces of said beveled ends being so inclined that the width of the welt from the extremity of the tongues to the opposite edge in one surface of the welt is greater than the corresponding dimensions in the opposite surface of the welt.

4. The method of making two welts from a strip of stock which consists in making a series of parallel transverse cuts in the longitudinal median zone of the strip extending through the strip at an inclination to the faces thereof and making intermediate cuts between the first named cuts arranged in a staggered relation in two rows at equal distances to the opposite sides from the longitudinal median line of the strip, the staggered cuts being so inclined as to form beveled ends on the tongues of the stock severed by said cuts.

5. The method of making two welts from a strip of stock which consists in making a series of parallel transverse cuts in the longitudinal median Zone of the strip extending through the strip at an inclination to the faces thereof, and making intermediate cuts between the first named cuts arranged in a staggered relation in two rows at equal distances to the opposite sides from the longi tudinal median line of the strip, the cuts in one of said rows being inclined away from those of the other row in passing from one face to the opposite face of the strip.

In testimony whereof I have aifixed my signature.

HARRY LYON. 

